The Prisoner
by Wendybird17
Summary: Aizen won the winter war and now with the state of chaos Grimmjow has been placed in charge of the shinigami prisoners. But one prisoner will get under his skin and shake him to his core. GrimmjowXOC Rated T for language because Grimmjow is a salty character.


so this was just rattling around my brain and sometimes ideas just demand to be written down. so yeah here goes nothing.

The Prisoner

The sound of shuffling feet filled the dank hall. The row of prisoners, defeated and lifeless followed their guard with heads hung low. The war was over and they had lost. The perpetual night of Hueco Mundo seemed to sap the will and life from the captured shinigami, and after the brutal fighting there were those who welcomed the death that was sure to come.

Grimmjow Jaegerjaques was grinding his teeth in frustration at the indignity of being assigned prison guard. The other remaining espada thought it a laugh, but according to Aizen all hands were needed as the transition of power took place. Aizen had won his war but not without heavy casualties among the arrancar, and only a handful of the original espada remained. So for now he was in charge of the prisoners. Not the important ones like the Kuchiki captain, who needed to be broken, carefully guarded, just low class shinigami, ones that didn't offer anything, and who would be executed shortly to set an example to the remaining survivors of Soul Society. It was a waste of his time; these pathetic husks weren't worth the effort to keep them alive for the scheduled execution.

Silently following along with her head down, was a small slender girl with short choppy hair and bangs that covered her pale eyes. It seemed that it had been a lifetime since she had felt the warmth of the sun and in the cold menacing halls of Hueco Mundo she knew she would not feel it again. The footsteps of the prisoners echoed in the cavernous hall, distorting their sound. She felt dead. Dead like the entire realm of eternal darkness that had swallowed her world, and would swallow her soon. She wished she had died in the battle with her Captain. She was there when he died knew his final efforts, but she was useless. Jushiro Ukitake died like a hero protecting them and all she could do was lie helpless and bleeding in the sand. She should have died there, deserved to but she didn't. Lost in her thoughts the girl failed to notice when the dismal procession stopped. She walked into someone, a someone who happened to be the sexta Espada.

Furious he wheeled around to face the person who hit him and stared back into the blank face of the girl. "Idiot" he breathed, "watch where you're going!" and picking her up by the collar of her robe he thrust her into the wall. The impact made the girl's head swim and disoriented she stood shakily. Absently she reentered the grim procession and soon they were led to their cells. "Get in." said the rough voice from earlier. Hesitantly the girl stepped forward, unsure. "I said get in! What the hell is your problem? Do u think you're brave, that you can stand up to us?" he yelled lifting her roughly by her neck. Gasping and terrified she shook her head. She could feel in this man a well of power, of angry energy foaming at the surface. She had heard of this one of his gross strength, his wildness. And now she was paralyzed with his hands wrapped dangerously around her throat. She stared into that well of churning power, sure she was about to die. Then next moment she was tossed into the cell, and collided with the cold stone floor.

Grimmjow's irritation rose when for the second time the same pitiful wraith had ignored him. When she stood still and stupid in front of cell door he proceeded to toss her in. He didn't have time to babysit these prisoners. But something about that drab hall full of the defeated, the near death had lingered with them long after he left. The eyes of the girl, kept appearing before him, their terror was profound but that wasn't what stayed with him. It was the confusion behind the terror that kept haunting him. He had felt shiver when those eyes had fixed on him, like she wasn't looking but knowing, and it unnerved him. "Who gives a fuck" he thought he wasn't going to feel sorry for her or any of them. It wasn't his fault that she was too stupid to understand orders.

He propped his feet up and closed his eyes ready to sleep when the pale and oh–so-superior form of Ulquiorra appeared in the doorway. "Have fun playing nursery mother today?" the cold voice intoned.

"Oh fuck you" he spat back " I'm sure you were off doing something much more important. Fucking great for you. Now if you don't mind I'm trying to sleep" But that proved more difficult than imagined. The sixth espada tossed and turned, and after rolling over and waking up from a bizarre dream, got up and decided to take a walk and try to shake off the eerie feeling he had. Wandering aimlessly around the halls of hueco mundo he let his feet carry him only dimly aware of where he was going. Dreamlike, he walked on as if some unearthly force were pulling him. Abruptly the surreal vision was broken by a bloodcurdling scream. For a moment he was frozen as the dreamlike quality of the night fell around him like shards of broken glass. He ran towards the source of the noise only to find himself in the hall where the prisoners were and the screaming was coming from the cell that belonged to the girl. How much trouble was this fucking brat going to cause him? Through the bars on the door he saw her gasping and screaming, hands scrabbling at her throat in terror.

When she summoned the will and energy to move the girl slowly shuffled her feet, hands outstretched until she felt the cold stone walls beneath her hands. With slow deliberate steps, and one hand on the wall she measured her cell. Along one wall was a window, high up, but the only light that would stream in was from the ever present moon. She found a thin blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. Her head still throbbed, as she thought about the rough voice, and the man it belonged to. She knew she was scheduled to die but she had a feeling this man might be the one to finish her. A shiver ran through her as she remembered that churning restless power. Others of Aizen's army seemed to strut around enjoying their reign of terror, but something about his restless reiatsu seemed to say he didn't share in the joy of their victory. But then again maybe he was just disappointed the violence was over. For now at least. She had a feeling that he would be very eager to torture and interrogate the shinigami prisoners. She had seen endless displays of unbelievable power over the course of the battles but there was something that scared her about his reiatsu. After what seemed like an eternity she fell into a fitful sleep which soon turned into nightmares. She relived the battles, was engulfed by cold and darkness, again she saw her comrades, and friends die around her, then the tone of the dream changed. She felt a suffocating pressure, screamed and woke, or at least she thought, for the pressure did not leave her, there was a pair of hands around her neck.

"Shut the hell up right now" said the rough voice. Cold dread filled her blood like ice. It was him, the espada. She could feel the power radiating off him. "I could kill you you know" he whispered in her ear, "right now, and no one would ever know you were gone". Her toes barely touched the floor as he held her by her throat, consciousness ebbing away. He threw her across the room. She scrabbled backwards across the floor trying to get away. Backed against the wall he approached her. "Just because you're still alive doesn't mean that we need to keep you that way". With her eyes averted Grimmjow's anger peaked, and crashed over her in waves. "Look at me damnitt!" he yelled rendering her motionless his spiritual pressure gripping her like a vice. Suddenly he was struck again by the strangeness of those eyes. He waved his hand in front of her filled with surprise. "You're blind?"

Breathing shallow, and heart fluttering like the wings of a hummingbird, she nodded. Somewhere in Grimmjow's gut he felt a twinge of something, he wasn't sure what it was, not pity no, like fucking Tousen she was competent enough to be a shinigami but there was something in those terrified eyes, the small body curled helpless before him, that stopped him, and for what might have been the first time he felt shame.

Slowly, infinitesimally, some of her panic began to ebb. Underneath that churning energy she felt something else, something more human. Then as if by its own volition she reached her hand out and brushed against his skin.

A shockwave ran through him when her fingertips brushed against his collar bone. It was as if for that fraction of a second she saw through him. Seizing her hand angrily she stumbled toward him and for a moment that might have been a few seconds, or a few centuries his wild blue eyes stared into her pale sightless ones. Yet somehow he had the feeling that she saw more of him than he did her. His anger seemed to dissipate and a strange calm washed over him.

She was frozen, but in that moment she felt less afraid, and sensed that beneath that well of power was something almost human, some long buried piece that somehow prevented him from killing her where she stood. "Who are you?" she whispered, uncertainly.

"Grimmjow" he answered surprising himself.

"My name is Ren" Great he knew her name now and was obliged to remember her. "May I look at you Grimmjow?" What the hell kinda question was that supposed to be? And before he could reply she placed her hands on either side of his face.

"Whoa whoa slow the fuck down! The hell do you think you're doing?" Backing away quickly she murmured something about wanting to see his face. He looked at her and laughed, not cruelly but simply for the fact that no one had probably ever touched him like that, or at least lived long afterward. No he wouldn't kill her, or hurt her at all. Something tugged at his insides when he looked at her.

Little did he know she would become the closest thing to a friend he ever had.

Their tenuous friendship began to manifest itself in small ways. In his daily walk-through of the halls there was some quick remark in passing, about his "bird in a cage" or as he mused one day, "or are you a bat? The way you scurry around in the dark so easily." One by one the prisoners scheduled for execution had their zanpakutos broken, spiritual pressure drained, and were tortured. More than once a prisoner didn't survive their interrogation and somehow she always seemed to know. Then one night he came to her again. He had been dreaming about his days as an adjuchas and couldn't sleep. He leaned against the door to the cell, and she stood on the other side and listened to him learning the nuances of his voice, which wasn't always so rough. "But what does it matter to you" he said after he was silent for a moment, "you're going to be dead soon anyway"

And to this her response was, "because it means something to you, and you have spared me, in more than one way".

The more he talked to her, thought about her, the stranger he felt. He didn't care for her of course! He didn't care about anyone, or at least that's what he tried to believe. But after he saw her truly suffer, deep in a place he regretted to admit existed he knew that he did feel something.

When they broke her zanpakuto she thought for sure she was dying. A shinigami's zanpakuto was essentially part of their soul, and though she hadn't laid her hands on her sword in ages they were still connected, and its spirit was always present to her. But when a zanpakuto is broken the trauma is sometimes so great that their shinigami sometimes die with it.

For three days Ren languished, wracked with fevered dreams. Again and again in her dreams she would come upon her zanpakuto spirit, bleeding and dying, but when she knelt to help, discovered that the blood was her own. Her body was on fire. She was freezing. Three merciless days where she waited for death, the fevered dreams went on. Once during the second day when she had been closest to death, the fevered visions were interrupted by a cool breeze, and a flash of blue. After this strange lull in the dreams she slept fitfully for a while before the nightmarish world descended on her again.

When she woke after the third day, sweating and exhausted, she found herself wrapped in a blanket that had not been there before.

He knew they were going to break their zanpakutos, had seen others die already and hadn't thought once about it except that Aizen was exhausting his supply of prisoners, but he couldn't put her turn off any longer. He watched her fight, the battle raging in her soul. He didn't know whether it was better to hope she should live or die. It might have been kinder for her to have died then might have made both of their lives easier. Many had died immediately but she fought, and however weak she might be compared to him, it took strength to fight when there was nothing at all left.

At one point he was sure she would die. He felt he should at least try and ease her suffering on some small level. He returned later and spent a while sitting by her watching as she writhed and shivered. Once he reached out his hand as if to brush her damp hair off her face, but paused changing his mind. Her eyes fluttered open momentarily and she moaned softly then lied deathly still for a few moments. He thought she had gone but then her chest began to rise and fall lightly and she seemed to rest easily at last.

But he knew that the execution day would come and when it finally did he felt a terrible weight settle in his stomach like he had never felt. He went to see her one last time, without any idea what he was going to say or do but he and would later regret it for the way it broke him.

She heard the door click softly open. Tomorrow would be the day. "I knew you were going to come" she said with a small smile. He didn't say anything he simply crossed the room in two strides and cupped her face in his hands. Taken aback for a moment, she shuddered. He wasn't sure he had the words to express the flood of unfamiliar emotions.

"Grimmjow, may I look at you?"

"What?" he said dazedly

"I want to see your face before I die" Unsure how to reply to this he nodded mutely. "Be still" she commanded as she placed her hands on his face. With her eyes closed she ran her fingers along the portion of his hollow mask, and along his jawline. She traced his eyes and the bridge of his nose, and skimmed his hairline, and felt the planes of his cheeks. And Grimmjow all the while stood stock still as she "looked" at him. Then she ran her thumb along his bottom lip and his self-contro broke. He twisted his hand through her hair and pulled her towards him, her face centimeters from him.

Her heart pounded as she stood so close to him. She could feel a confused mixture of emotions flowing off him, but she dared not move and shatter the last happy moment she might ever have. Then very gently his lips touched hers. And that was all it took and then she was holding onto him like her life depended on it. She wanted to drink him in, he was full of life and energy, and power and it radiated off of him like heat. She felt as if her life would end the moment he broke away from her rather than in the morning when she was scheduled to be executed.

Her body trembled against him, and he wrapped his powerful arms around her thin frame. He felt her heart beating against his skin, as if it was determined to fulfill a whole lifetime's worth of beats in the next few minutes. He felt her terrible desperation, and his own confused emotions washed over her but both were lost momentarily. What was happening to him? It was strange. It was a goodbye, it was a moment of weakness, it was a brief moment of solace, it was more than a carnal desire it was an acknowledgement of an impending loss.

Neither was one of many words, and nothing else was spoken between them. Rather any number of things had been translated silently, and a tangle of thoughts and emotions clung to them. And then he left her heart strangely lighter and his strangely heavier. She went to her death with grace, and with the ghost of a smile on her lips. Grimmjow did not watch, did not outwardly acknowledge her absence but something had changed in him, or rather something in him had been drawn to the surface.

She never saw him, but she knew that in that frightening man, underneath that dark energy there was some small light.

A/N- so yeah tell me what you think. love it hate it? I wanted to try and explore his character because I think there's more to him. Anyway I tried guys. Thanks for reading review are highly appreciated.


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